Postcard Friendship Friday! Thanksgiving Wishes to You!

Postcard reprinted here with kind permission of CardCow.com

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This young miss is either attempting a last minute fattening of Tom Turkey or she's trying to lure him into the cooking pot. He'll have even more to grouse about if we tell him he is related to the grouse.

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The name given to a group of turkeys is a rafter, although they are sometimes incorrectly referred to as a gobble or flock. Chicks are called poults.

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Turkeys are traditionally eaten as the main course of Christmas feasts in much of the world, as well as Thanksgiving in the United States and Canada, though this tradition has its origins in modern times, rather than colonial as is often supposed.

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Before the 20th century, pork ribs were the most common food on the holiday, as the animals were usually slaughtered in November. Turkeys were once so abundant in the wild that they were eaten throughout the year, the food considered commonplace, whereas pork ribs were rarely available outside of the Thanksgiving-New Year season. It has also displaced, to a certain extent, the traditional Christmas roast goose or beef of the United Kingdom and Europe.

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While eating turkey was once mainly restricted to special occasions such as these, turkey is now eaten year-round and forms a regular part of many diets.
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The Thanksgiving wishes from Uncle Dale, a man of few words, was mailed from Eden Maine to Brooklin, Maine on November 23, 1909.
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Brooklin, Maine was incorporated as the town of Port Watson on June 9, 1849. Just a few weeks later, the name was changed to Brooklin. The community was named for the brook line that separated the towns of Brooklin and Sedgwick.

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Charlotte's Web author, E. B. White lived in Brookline
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I had a difficult time finding Eden; the name was changed to Bar Harbor in 1918 (under a law passed in 1913) It is located on Mount Desert Island.
Bar Harbor became a retreat for prominent people of the time. The Rockefellers, Morgans, Fords, Vanderbilts, Carnegies, and Astors, chose to spend their summers here. Not content with the simple lodgings then available, these families transformed the landscape of Mount Desert Island with elegant estates, euphemistically called "cottages." Luxury, refinement, and ostentatious gatherings replaced buckboard rides, picnics, and day-long hikes of an earlier era.
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One of the primary color crops of Maine are blue berries. Did you know they are false berries? Deceitful little things!
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A false berry is an accessory fruit found in certain plant species with an inferior ovary, distinguishing it from a true berry. In these species other parts of the flower (including the basal parts of the sepals, petals, and stamens) can ripen along with the ovary, forming the false berry. Examples of plants which produce false berries include:
Banana
cucumber
cantaloupe
watermelon
squash

pumpkin
Blueberry
Cranberry

Another primary color Maine crop is the red lobster - pronounced lobstah in Bah Habah Maine.
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Lobsters may effectively live indefinitely, barring injury, disease, capture, etc. In other words, they don't age. Because of this, they can reach impressive sizes. According to the Guinness World Records, the largest lobster was caught in Nova Scotia, Canada, and weighed 20.15 kilograms (44.4 lb). Pass me the buttah!

Enjoy your Thanksgiving!

While you are munching on your Friday fare of turkey sandwiches, turkey salad, turkey soup, turkey pot pie, turkey ala king and turkey bites snagged furtively out of the fridge, pop over and see Marie at Voila! Vintage Postcards for more Postcard Friendship Friday fun!

Cranberries Brighten Our Thanksgiving Tables

Vintage postcard image with kind permission of CardCow.com

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Cranberry Harvest on Cape Cod using the dry-picked method using two-handed comb scoops.

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Mmmm what can be brighter and righter than a sparkling dish of cranberries on the holiday table?

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Holiday Bright!

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Imagine how...well...brown and white our plates would look without them? Cranberries appear everywhere at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Some take the form of trusty ole' Ocean Spray Cranberry Sauce. Always tasty, always dependable, always SO difficult to get out of the can.

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Homemade cranberry sauces (usually cooked) and relishes (usually uncooked) appear from cupboards and larders with special ingredients ranging from cinnamon and oranges to onions and jalapenos. A treat for taste buds everywhere.

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I decided to find something new for the cranberry dish this year. I browsed through several recipes for ideas and ended up with an original recipe of my own. The recipe made 3 pint jars with a little left over for tasting. One jar for Thanksgiving, one to share, and one for Christmas. The surprise ingredient is rosemary! A perfect meld of flavors and textures.

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Cynthia's Cranberry Sauce with Pears and Orange
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Ingredients:
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2 12 oz bags of cranberries (picked over and washed)
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1 Cup Orange Juice

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1 Tablespoon orange zest
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2 Cups sugar (use natural Florida crystals where available)
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2 medium slightly under-ripe pears (Bosc are excellent) pared and diced about 1/3 of an inch.
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1 1/2 teaspoons fresh rosemary, minced, or 1/2 tsp. dried rosemary, crushed
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3 tablespoons Grand Mariner (optional for you, but required for me)
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Combine all ingredients in large saucepan, and stir well. Place over medium heat and boil, stirring, until berries pop open - about 10 minutes. Spoon into clean pint sized canning jars or other containers. Cool. Refrigerate, covered, for up to 2 months.
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What can be easier than that?
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For all of you city slickers:
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Cranberries are harvested in the fall when the fruit takes on its distinctive deep red color. This is usually in late September or early October.
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Wet-Picked Method: To harvest cranberries, the beds are flooded with six to eight inches of water above the vines. A harvester is driven through the beds to remove the fruit from the vines. For the past 50 years, water reel type harvesters have been used. Harvested cranberries float in the water and can be corralled into a corner of the bed and conveyed or pumped from the bed. From the farm, cranberries are taken to receiving stations where they are cleaned, sorted, and stored prior to packaging or processing.
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Dry-Picked Method: Although most cranberries are wet-picked, 5-10% of the US crop is still dry-picked. This entails higher labor costs and lower yield, but dry-picked berries are less bruised and can be sold as fresh fruit instead of having to be immediately frozen or processed. Originally performed with two-handed comb scoops, dry picking is today accomplished by motorized, walk-behind harvesters which must be small enough to traverse beds without damaging the vines.

Postcard Friendship Friday in the Granite State!

Image with kind permission of CardCow.com

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This bright little Postcard Friendship Friday Miss has her eyes on the pies. Her wishes are probably for some of each. I can almost smell the scent of pumpkin, apples, mince and cinnamon. .

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Today's card is postmarked November 22, 1910, and was mailed to East Hebron in central New Hampshire, on the shore of Newfound lake. Newfound lake, the 3rd largest in New Hampshire - or 4th, depending on who you cite - is spring fed, and renews itself with fresh water twice per year.
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Newfound Lake

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The card reads:

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Dear G.

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How are you now-a-days and how are the rest of the folks.
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The school closed last Thursday. Did you know Leslie had got an automobile?

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Write and let us know how you are.

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From Mattie and Bessie.

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The message was a bit of a cliffhanger, don't you think? WHY was the school closed? Fire? Twelve feet of snow? Volcano? And just who is this Leslie person and how did he - or perhaps she - get an automobile? Was it purchased, inherited or was this the result of the first reported carjacking? What color? What model? Is Leslie going drop by and pick up G. for Thanksgiving? What's for dinner? We demand to know.

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The NH city on the postmark is not readable. It may be Bristol, which is nearby. Close enough to pick up G.

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With abundant rivers and lakes and oceanfront, clams, oysters and fish of all kinds would have found themselves on the Thanksgiving table. New Hampshire food specialties include corn chowder, oyster stew, fish hash, and Old Portsmouth Orange Cake.

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Old Portsmouth Orange Cake

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I made this one! I was intrigued by the recipe instructions, which are:
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Old Portsmouth Orange Cake

1 cup sugar

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5 eggs

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2 tablespoons orange juice

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2 tablespoons water

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1 tablespoon grated orange rind

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1/4 teaspoon orange extract

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1/2 teaspoon mace

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2 cups cake flour, sifted.

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Put sugar and eggs in a kettle or saucepan. Stir over the fire until lukewarm. Watch carefully. Do not let the mixture get too hot. Remove from the fire.

Add orange juice and water. Beat until "stone cold," about 15 minutes. Mixture should be light and stiff.

Flavor with orange rind, orange extract, and mace. Fold in flour lightly. Bake in a 10" X 15" grease and floured pan. Bake cake at 325 degrees F. For 30 to 40 minutes. Do not overbake.

Cut in small squares and serve at tea time. This lovely cake keeps well and can be frozen successfully.

(Adapted from Old St. John's Parish Cookbook, courtesy of Mrs. Frank Hulshor)

The egg and sugar mixture really does thicken up nicely once the orange juice is added. I had my 25 year old Oster on a rather high speed. It took just about 15 minutes to thicken - just as the recipe says.

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It baked nicely - didn't bulge or sink in the middle. We enjoyed the cake for dessert after a dinner of Chicken Caesar burgers on pita bread. The cake was moist, somewhat spongy and had a delicate orange flavor.

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What did the first colonists in New Hampshire do when they weren't baking orange cake? They built homes, started fisheries, and traded the Indians for furs. These settlers had no agricultural experience and found it hard to adapt to their new surroundings. Although familiar with saltwater fishing, they still depended upon England for most of their food supplies.

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Wild game and turkey were plentiful, but the early settlers did not know how to catch them and ammunition was in short supply. During the summer the settlers learned to gather wild black currants, raspberries, and strawberries. They started importing seedlings and cutting of fruit trees from England, and soon almost every farm had an orchard. Vegetable gardens could not be relied upon as a steady supply of food, however, due to the short growing season and sudden changes in the weather.

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Salmon Pie

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In 1719 shiploads of Scotch-Irish families arrived and settled near the Merrimack Valley in New Hampshire. These settlers bought potatoes with them. Within two decades potatoes became an important crop in New England.
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The English, who also settled in New Hampshire, introduced another root vegetable, the turnip, to New England. By 1840 more than half of the land in New Hampshire was farmed.
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In addition to the English and Scotch-Irish, there was also a large influx of French-Canadian settlers in New Hampshire. They brought with them recipes for roast pork, pea soup, pickled beets, and salmon pie made with mashed potatoes, onions, milk, and seasonings. Apple butter has been made in New Hampshire since colonial times..."---Taste of the States: A Food History of America, Hilde Gabriel Lee [Howell Press:Charlottesville VA] 1992 (p. 25-7)
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Most of you out there know I don't like beets. so I'm not going to thank the French Canadians for those, but salmon pie and pea soup? Now we're talking!

What regional foods or family traditions grace your Thanksgiving table? The basics are always on our table in some form; the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes. Oh, and green bean salad, cranberries and corn. No beets. Not ever. We all tend to try new marinades, bastes, and recipes, and different stuffings. Always good, always better when enjoyed by several families. Maybe I'll stop by and pick G. up for dinner!
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Try placing a few kernels of Indian corn (unpopped popcorn will do) on each plate as a reminder of the hardships the first settlers endured during those first years in America.

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Stop by Marie's at Voila! Vintage Postcards to see what's cooking over there!

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Thank you for stopping by!

Technically Speaking It's IM Roadkill

I happened to spot a bucket of buzzards flying over US19 this morning. It was an interesting sight, because of the way the sun was positioned. Each time a buzzard turned left, the tip of their wing would light up as if they were using their turn signals. I wish people around here would use turn signals more often.

The first thing that came to mind, of course is the Florida State Critter - the belly-up armadillo. Nothing like a breakfast of roadkill. Speaking of roadkill, the very next thing I thought the buzzards may have glomed on was a potential meal - fresh, and a bit more technical in nature.

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OMG dude! I'm going to YYAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa!

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Jest waitaminnit Chester. That lady with the kids'll be by at 8:03
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The next thing that came to mind was WHY does there have to be a law for everything stupid that we do. Why don't we just STOP being stupid. Wow, what an idea. What if we all just grabbed ourselves by the scruff of the neck and said LOOK! What's more important in this scenario? Me texting Lorna about the new shoes I just bought or those kids of mine in the back seat. Or that old couple just ahead of me coming back from a Dr. appointment. Or that guy to the right of me who's getting married next week? Hmm shoes...life....shoes...life....shoes.....
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I counted drivers using cell phones while I waited at a light by a large office building. These people were all turning left onto a street with a 55 mile an hour speed limit that merges into an on ramp for I-275. 4 out of 5. FOUR out of FIVE of the 40 or so drivers were on the cell phone. (Yeah, I just got outta work. I'm gonna stop an pick up some soda on the way home) Three were smoking a cigarette with one hand, using the cell phone with the other, and kind of driving with their wrists. LISTEN to what I'm sayin' here folks.
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Do you get it? Hands free devices and no texting. Pull over to take that call and maybe save someone from being roadkill over a new pair of shoes. Wow! What a concept. Oh, and buckle up while you're at it. We had to make laws about that too.


BTW - a note to FLICKR users. If you're going to photograph an elegance of eagles, a harrowing of hawks or an inquirey of owls, don't call the birds buzzards. Buzzard pictures should be of buzzards. Hawks and osprey and owls aren't buzzards, okay? I had to scroll through 8 pages of pictures before I could steal one that was actually a picture of a buzzard. If you want to text me about this, don't do it in the car.

Postcard Friendship Friday! Wishing on Wishbones

Postcard reprinted with kind permission of CardCow.com

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Happy Postcard Friendship Friday! This colorful Thanksgiving postcard includes a verse:

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May your Thanksgiving be happy

And when the dinner is through

May the biggest part of the wishbone

Be the end that's held by you

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Ahh that magical wishbone. Only one to a bird. Something to fight over when there are more than two folks at the table. I get dibs on the wishbone! No you don't, you had it last year. Did not. Did. - besides, you got the drumstick. Maaaa!?!?!
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Well, you have a lucky break this year, and so do vegetarians! Synthetic wishbones are available in packages of all sizes from 3 to 300. Sorry, you'll still have to fight over the drumsticks until someone comes of with a four legged bird.

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Ed and Millie mailed this card November 24, 1914, from Penn Square Station in Philadelphia to 11 year old Alice E. Desmond in Providence Rhode Island. How do I know Alice was 11? Because I found her obituary! It appears she enjoyed an interesting and full life.



I attempted to find information and a picture of Penn Square Station, but came up empty.



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Narragansett Indians meet with Roger Williams

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Alice's address still exists in Providence, which is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island, and one of the first cities established in the United States. Providence was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He named the area Providence Plantation in honor of "God's merciful Providence" which he believed was responsible for revealing such a haven for him and his followers to settle.



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Providence circa 1850
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The separate plantation colonies in the Narragansett Bay region were very progressive for their time, passing laws abolishing witchcraft trials, imprisonment for debt, most capital punishment, and on March 18, 1652, chattel slavery of both blacks and whites. Most religious groups were welcomed, with only some restrictions on Catholicism.

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Providence, circa 1950

According to The Onion - Our Dumb World Atlas of the Planet Earth, which I like to reference for accuracy, Rhode Island, the basic unit of geography, exists solely for the purpose of describing how big other land masses are. For example, it's about 1/3 the size of Puerto Rico and you can fit about 76 Rhode Islands in Portugal.

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.The Rhode Island Red is the official state bird of Rhode Island. Is too. Look it up.

The Providence thanksgiving table might include a few local dishes.

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Snail Salad

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Several foods and dishes unique to Rhode Island and hard to find outside of the state include
Hot wieners, which are sometimes called gaggers, weenies, or New York System wieners, are smaller than a standard hot dog, served covered in a meat sauce, chopped onions, mustard, and celery salt.

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These look something like the Lafayette Coney Island Hotdogs served in downtown Detroit, but.....hmmmm...celery salt?.? Patooie!

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Famous to Rhode Island is Snail Salad, which is served at numerous restaurants throughout the state. The dish is normally prepared "family style" with over five pounds of snails mixed in with other ingredients commonly found in seafood dishes.

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Grinders are submarine sandwiches, with a popular version being the Italian grinder, which is made with cold cuts (usually ham, prosciutto, capicola, salami, and Provolone cheese). Linguiça (a spicy Portuguese sausage) and peppers, eaten with hearty bread, is also popular among the state's large Portuguese community.

Johnny cakes are one of the oldest dishes, and stuffies (stuffed clams) are one of many seafood specialties.
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Johnny Cakes

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Providence today

Thank you so much for stopping by!!!

For more PFF fun stop by Marie's place at Voila Vintage Postcards!

Postcard Friendship Friday! A Bluegrass Thanksgiving

Happy Postcard Friendship Friday! I'm still getting over the shock of this being November. It should be June, I tell you, June. But no! It is November! I'll go with the flow though, and share vintage Thanksgiving cards.

"Thanksgiving in the South 1912" is an interesting Thanksgiving theme. I'm hoping the young woman is generously sharing the basket filled with Thanksgiving treats - and not collecting it. I also hope that little raccoon is just sleeping, and not about to be popped into the oven next to the turkey. I'm just saying.

This card was postmarked November 28, 1912 and was mailed from Maceo, Kentucky to Crestwood, Kentucky. Maceo is a tiny town of 500 in NW Kentucky on the Indiana boarder. Crestwood is just NE of Louisville, and also lies very close to the Indiana boarder. This town is one of only two in Kentucky to be listed in the top 100 of CNN’s Best Places to Live 2005 list. Crestwood made the list with places like the Fox Hollow Clinic with its spa, massage therapy clinic, and bed and breakfast.

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Speaking of breakfast, Kentucky's cuisine, like much of the state's culture, is unique and is considered to blend elements of both the South and Midwest, given its location between the two regions.

One original Kentucky dish is called the Hot Brown, a dish normally layered in this order: toasted bread, turkey, bacon, tomatoes and topped with mornay sauce. It was developed at the Brown Hotel in Louisville.

Harland Sanders originated Kentucky Fried Chicken at his service station in Corbin, Kentucky, though the first franchised KFC was located in South Salt Lake City, Utah

Kentucky Bluegrass - not to be confused with the music

The grass: Kentucky is known as the Bluegrass State. Bluegrass is a cool weather grass, not very drought tolerant and recommended for low traffic areas. Its beautiful cool blue green hue and barefoot delight make this a popular lawn grass. This is not the only "grass" grown in Kentucky. The state is 2nd only to California in marijuana growing.

The music: Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and is a sub-genre of country music. It has roots in Irish, West African, Scottish, Welsh and English traditional music. Bluegrass was inspired by the music of immigrants from the United Kingdom and Ireland (particularly the Scots-Irish immigrants in Appalachia), and African-Americans, particularly through genres such as jazz and blues. The Father of Bluegrass is Bill Monroe. Click here for a generous sample of his music

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Unlike mainstream country music, bluegrass relies mostly on acoustic stringed instruments. The fiddle, five string banjo, acoustic guitar, mandolin, and upright bass are often joined by the resonator guitar (popularly known by the Dobro brand name)

Kentucky is also happily known as the Bourbon Capitol of the World. 95% of this great American whiskey is brewed and aged in Kentucky.

Bourbon is a type of distilled spirit, made primarily from corn and named for Bourbon County Kentucky. It has been produced since the 18th century. While it can be made anywhere in the United States, it is strongly associated with the Southern United States, especially Kentucky.

The Old Fashioned highball is a Kentucky-born drink make with bourbon.

The Mint Julep, the traditional Kentucky Derby drink Since 1938 is also make with Kentucky bourbon.

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Mint juleps were often served in silver or pewter cups, and held only by the bottom and top edges of the cup. This allows frost to form on the outside of the cup. Traditional hand placement may have arisen as a way to reduce the heat transferred from the hand to the silver or pewter cup. Today, mint juleps are most commonly served in a tall old-fashioned glass, Collins glass, or highball glass with a straw.

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Mine That Bird - 2009 Kentucky Derby Winner
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The term 'julep' is generally defined as a sweet drink, particularly one used as a vehicle for medicine. The word itself is derived from Persian: گلاب Golâb, meaning rose water. (I'm beginning to feel better already!)

A True Kentucky Dish - Burgoo

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Another Kentucky Derby favorite is Burgoo, a spicy stew that has its roots in the Irish or mulligan stew. Traditionally, the idea was to make a stew using whatever meats and vegetables were available and in good supply. That meant venison, squirrel, opossum (though not in modern recipes) or game birds; essentially whatever the hunt brought back. The local Kentucky barbecue restaurants use specific meats—usually pork, chicken or mutton—in their recipes which creates (along with spice choices) a distinct flavor unique to each restaurant. Corn bread or corn muffins are served on the side.

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Moss agate - the Kentucky State Stone.

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The Kentucky State mineral - coal.

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Coal mining towns were owned by the mining company. A typical coal mining town is pictured above.

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The song "Sixteen Tons" is about the realities of coal mining. It was first recorded in 1946 by U.S. country singer Merle Travis. A 1955 version recorded by 'Tennessee' Ernie Ford reached number one in the Billboard charts.

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The well-known chorus runs:
You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go;
I owe my soul to the company store...

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The line "I owe my soul to the company store" is a reference to the truck system and to debt bondage. Under this system workers were not paid cash; rather they were paid with unexchangeable credit vouchers for goods at the company store (usually referred to as scrip). This made it impossible for workers to store up cash savings.

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The practice is ostensibly one of a free and legal exchange, whereby an employer would offer something of value (typically goods, food, and/or housing) in exchange for labour, with the result being the same as if the labourer had been paid money and then spent the money on these necessities. The word truck came into the English language within this context, from the French,troquer, meaning 'exchange' or 'barter'.

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A truck system differs from this kind of open barter or payment in kind system by creating or taking advantage of a closed economic system in which workers have little or no opportunity to choose other work arrangements, and can easily become so indebted to their employers that they are unable to leave the system legally. The truck system persisted until the strikes of the newly-formed United Mine Workers and affiliated unions forced an end to such practices.

Coal is a diamond in the making. For more diamonds in the making, stop by and see our Postcard Friendship Friday host, Marie at Voila, Vintage Postcards.